


Katoh

by Markition



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternative Lifestyles, Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-02-27 22:40:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2709296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markition/pseuds/Markition
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is the weight of a word? When Bull opened their relations by laying down rules, Adaar was hesitant. He hadn’t known what to expect. But every night Adaar spends with the Iron Bull is new, and unearths something he hadn’t known about himself the night before. Adaar has no idea where this mess is going, but he does know one thing--Bull was absolutely right when he said he needed this. They both do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: A Lesson on Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a multi-chapter work exploring Bull and Adaar’s journey into a lifestyle dom/sub relationship, and the complicated interplay of that choice and Adaar’s identity as the Inquisitor. Adaar (the Inquisitor) is a male, mage Qunari for this particular fic. There WILL be very explicit scenes later, with possible Dorian involvement. You have been warned. Enjoy!

The evening was late, and very, very noisy.

The recent escapade had net the Inquisition the carcass of the mighty dragon Vinsomer, bones and scales and all. The men had lifted a new shipment of supplies from the foraging efforts in the Plains, the squad Cullen sent into the Hinterlands had returned with no losses, and spirits were high. The Inquisitor had ordered fifteen barrels of the finest vintage wine in the cellar brought up, six pigs were roasted out in the courtyard and a feast was had. The men were drinking late tonight, there would be more unconscious bodies in the corridors than sober arms come morning. Only the poor sods standing watch were removed from the feasting, and even then, the Inquisitor ordered one glass of wine and a king’s share of meat brought up to them before it all started. No one was left in poor spirits that night.

As soon as he thought the crowd sufficiently drunk enough to miss his absence, the Inquisitor politely--and quietly--made his excuses and retired. The main hall had become a chaotic sea of drunken songs and contests, fully involved in their own fun. Only his inner circle would notice, he was sure, and they knew better than to stand between him and escape. To the soldiers he was just the Inquisitor, and he would appear at the feasts and lead their toasts and hit the festivities off. But to his inner circle he was Adaar, reclusive and decisive but ultimately inverted and thoughtful. Huge crowds wore on him faster than any battle. He’d rather go slay a dragon than stand at the throne and give a speech of thanks.

He didn’t like the feasts. He didn’t like the noise, the expectations, and he was too tired to live up to who they wanted him to be tonight.

So as the evening grew older, the Inquisitor slid through the doors to his quarters and shut them--softly--behind him. When he crossed that threshold the mask of the Inquisitor fell to the floor and he was simply Adaar, purely Adaar. He still did not relax. He crept up the stairs and shed layers of armor as he went, he left his mage’s staff by the bannister and his boots by the foot of the bed. He stood in front of the locked glass doors staring out at the black mass of the mountains, listening to the wind rattle the panes. He breathed for the first time since they’d returned with their spoils.

But he did not relax.

Somewhere below, the doors opened. A burst of laughter, song and bustle filtered in from the hall. Then the doors shut again, sealing off his quarters once more. Footsteps climbed the stairs slowly in the resumed silence.

“It’s me, boss.”

Adaar pulled himself out of the ragged edges stretched out before him. He tilted his head, watched the top of the stairs from the corner of his eye. Bull’s horns crested the stone floor, followed by a drunken, lopsided smirk. Adaar knew he softened just at the sound of that voice, there was no point denying it. Nonetheless, there were images to uphold. Adaar the Inquisitor maintained his vigil, as if he could see anything beyond vague snowy shapes in the darkening sky.

“Noticed you left. Did the hall get too stuffy for you? The boys went back to the tavern, we could join ‘em,” Bull said. He kept a respectful distance, circled around the man he courted and sat on the corner of the oakwood desk. The move was strategic--he had a perfect view of Adaar’s profile from his selected spot.

So much for taking the easy way out, of hiding the tiny hints of emotion Bull loved to pick up on. Adaar sighed, inwardly. Leave it to Bull to ruin any attempt he made at keeping to himself.

“That’s alright, Bull. You should go to them, though. I’ve stolen you since we returned. They must miss their captain,” Adaar heard himself say. His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears.

“Oh, they get quite enough of me, don’t worry,” Bull said. He snorted. “Spare me the veiled concern, boss. What’s bothering you?”

A perfectly rational question. Adaar just wished that it had a rational answer. He didn’t know how to put into words the tension that had made its home in his spine, creeping up in those quiet moments that he’d used to consider his time off. Now, whenever he tried to sit alone and read, or sleep, or do anything that didn’t directly involve the paperwork at his desk, Adaar felt like he was losing time. He had to work, he had to be standing at the war table making decisions and tending to his flock. He couldn’t afford to take this night--any night--off. Or that’s what his stress was telling him, anyway.

Adaar sighed. He didn’t hide it this time. “I’m just tired. I came in here to relax, but…”

“...but you can’t. Gotcha.” Bull pushed off the desk, lifted himself to his full height. His movements were fluid strength as he came up behind Adaar. “Go over to the desk,” he commanded.

“What?” Where nothing else had convinced Adaar to turn and give Bull his full attention, that did. He was startled into it, reminded that Bull was not someone who he could ignore. Bull was not just another yes-man coming to check on him.

“You want to relax,” Bull repeated, slowly, as if Adaar was having trouble understanding the individual words coming out of his mouth. “Right?”

“That’s not…”

Adaar froze when he realized how close Bull had gotten, they stood nearly chest-to-chest. At some point when Adaar had clearly not been paying enough attention, Bull had positioned himself to stand between his Inquisitor and the rest of the bedroom setup, leaving the only one escape route--the desk corner. Exactly where Bull wanted him to go.

“You haven’t slept since we made way,” Bull reminded Adaar casually. He did not expand on how he knew his sleeping habits, whether he was observing himself or taking notes. “It’s all well and good to be strong for the masses, but keep this up and you’ll be in the infirmary. Then what will our enemies say of you?”

Adaar didn’t have a comeback for that. His teeth clicked together as he clenched his jaw, wondered when Bull had become so damn perceptive, then quietly relented that yes, maybe he needed the assistance. He let Bull drive him toward the desk, acquiescing without actually commenting on it. This felt very natural, for an arrangement that was so new. Bull seemed to know exactly what to do, and Adaar--beneath the posture and the divine purpose and the Inquisitor’s mask--needed him.

“Hands on the desk,” Bull murmured. He’d stayed with Adaar, matched step for step, and now he was the thick wall of strength at his back pinning his thighs to the edge of the writing desk.

Adaar obeyed, placed both his hands palms down on the surface of his desk. It left him bent at the waist, vulnerable with his eyes on nothing but the forgotten piles of reports scattered across his work space. Bull pressed against him and for a moment their single--powerful--point of contact was a sexual one. Adaar could feel Bull through his trousers and the memories of their last night together came unbidden, potent enough to knock loose his last reservations about this. He hadn’t been horny when he came up here, but Bull had changed that. One command, and Adaar was willing to see how this played out.

Hands on his hips, moving around him. Fingers unbuttoning his formal coat, Bull’s solid chest against his back. Adaar breathed, because for a moment that’s all he could think to do.

“What is pain to you, Adaar?” Bull asked.

“Pain…?” Pain was many things to him. A fact of life, for one. A part of battle, a part of stealing the life from lesser warriors, a part of the Fade, where Adaar’s power flowed freely. Pain was the mark on his hand and the power he wielded, the very thing that had brought ten thousand men to Skyhold to serve. Pain was important. Pain was complicated. “I don’t know,” he said finally, lost. Pain was too many things to explain to Bull right now.

“It is important,” Bull said, as if reading Adaar’s thoughts directly. “Pain lets you know that you’re alive. Pain is a part of release.”

Conceptually, Adaar did not understand what part pain played in release. Release was pleasure, every bedroom game Adaar had ever played involved a short raunchy exchange of body fluids and panting. He already knew Bull was an artist compared to him, but now he spoke of things he’d never even heard of.

But it resonated with something inside him. The same part of Adaar that relished the strength holding him against the desk wanted to know what Bull meant when he said pain was release.

Adaar stole a glance at Bull over his shoulder. It was heated, torn, and filled with the ragged edges the campaigns had left. “Show me.”

 

xxx

 

When all was said and done, after Bull had shown him the flat side of a scabbard and exactly how much it could hurt against his thighs and backside, they ended up in bed doing something much more familiar.

Bull tied him to the bed on his stomach, wrists wrapped up in leather belts buckled to the reinforced frame, and made Adaar scream his release to the stone tower itself, the frozen mountain night outside of their sanctuary. And when he was done, when there was nothing left inside him to break down, Bull found his own release. For a time there were no barriers, just a raw, primal thing panting and grunting between them.

In the aftermath, Bull got to his feet. He left Adaar tied to the bed and crossed the room, naked as the day he was born. He crouched beside the fireplace and began feeding logs into the dying embers, attempting to fight the chill of the great stone walls around them. Skyhold was magnificent, but damn if it wasn’t a frozen bitch on nights like this.

“You did good,” Bull said.

Adaar groaned wordlessly at him, fading between levels of awareness. Exhaustion rose like floodwater, threatening to sweep him away. He couldn’t move his limbs and that was fine, that was comfortable, that was perfect.

His eyes cracked open, the world swam back into view. Bull was standing over him, he’d come back from the fireplace. Adaar couldn’t feel his face but he thought he must’ve done something stupid like smile, because Bull chuckled and pat the side of his face, open-palmed. Adaar wrinkled his nose and fought a brief--losing--battle with his eyelids.

Bull’s hands, strong and warm, untied his ankles. His fingers ran up each of Adaar’s legs in turn, massaging the post-stress tension out of his muscles. Bull knew bodies, he knew how to command Adaar’s body better than Adaar did. The burn that came with being taken by Bull faded as he relaxed, it fell to a comfortable sensation of being well-used. He would ache come morning, but it would be nothing like that first night. He would be able to sit the throne without wincing, for instance.

When he was done, Bull laid the comforters out over Adaar to ward off the chill. He had not, however, released Adaar’s wrists. This seemed like a small issue at first, an oversight, but when Bull just about tucked him in, Adaar forced himself back to functional consciousness.

“Are you leaving?” he asked, slurring and drowsy.

“Yes. I’ll be back,” Bull assured him. “You need to sleep.”

Adaar tugged his wrists. The metal buckles rattled against the headboard. “...like this?” he asked.

Bull grinned. He leaned down, kissed Adaar’s shoulder blade. Then he went about pulling his trousers back on. “I’ve seen you summon fire that puts the _gaatlok_ to shame, boss. If you need to be free of those, nothing is stopping you.”

The message beneath those words caught in Adaar’s mind with claws like fish hooks. He could escape if he needed to. There was still an out. Bull would never leave him without an escape. That was what the trust meant, what the significance of katoh was. If he needed out, he could get out.

“But you’re leaving them on,” Adaar said.

Bull nodded. “I’m going to check on my boys. I’ll be back in a couple hours. If you want to see what happens next, don’t break the belts.”

He gave a lazy salute, and left. Adaar watched Bull saunter down the stairs in silence, exhausted but horny beyond belief. Frustration was part of the game, evidently, and even though he was so recently spent he found himself quickening again at the restraints. He’d never thought he’d willingly allow himself to be bound to a bed. This was the last thing he’d expected--this was the last thing he thought he’d enjoy.

Bull was right, though. He didn’t want to break the belts. He wanted to know what happened next.

He drifted off on that thought, lost to the clutches of a hard-earned rest.

 

 


	2. Part 1.2: That Means He Likes It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the reviews + kudos, guys. I'm glad this is getting such a warm reception.  
> And a fair warning -- this chapter gets pretty explicit pretty fast. Enjoy!

Leliana pinned Iron Bull in the outer hall, her eyes were just as sharp as any dagger he’d faced on the Seheron battlefields. “He seems to rest an awful lot after your...visits,” she commented.

Bull grinned. “If he sleeps well, my job’s done.”

“An incapacitated Inquisitor is cause for worry,” Leliana said. “Especially amongst the advisors.”

Bull slowly tilted his head, he dropped the easy swagger smile and studied Leliana for a good minute, quietly measuring her. To her credit, she met his eyes and didn’t flinch once. He would’ve expected nothing else from a master of whisperers. It was also frustrating, of course, because Bull could never peg her characteristics. Not satisfactorily, anyway.

“Incapacitated for a night beats you lot running him dry and having him snap. He wasn’t trained for any of this,” Bull growled.

Leliana inclined her head by a few, barely noticeable degrees. “Your point has merit,” she agreed. “But the council should be informed of this...arrangement.”

“That’s for him to decide, don’t you think?” Bull asked. He cracked a crooked grin, flashed some impressive incisors, and meandered on past Leliana. “I’ll ask him for you.”

She watched him go, lingering in the corridor that led to the Inquisitor’s chambers. Finally, as if dangling on the decision, she sighed and went back to the festivities. This was a battle for another time.

  
  


xxx

  
  


Bull returned with supple leather strips, a metal bit and several lengths of rope. Adaar didn’t know what else he’d been expecting, but it was an hour after dawn and the gauzy fade of sleep still held him close. It felt like a present he hadn’t expected. He watched Bull’s back from the safety of his pillows, trying to pretend to be asleep, too excited to close his eyes. He’d been waiting for this. The sun had woken him up nearly an hour ago, but he’d kept the belts on obediently--he wanted to know what came next.

And Bull showed him.

It started with measuring the lengths of leather. Bull took one of his ankles and, without saying a word to him, began wrapping the leather neatly around it. Then he folded his leg on itself, putting his ankle flush up against his thigh, and wound the leather from his ankle to his thigh then back again. It was methodical, beautiful, secure. The pressure was even and the position was restrained but comfortable. When Bull let his ankle go, he found he couldn’t move it. There was no give at all.

Adaar moaned into the pillow despite himself. Bull chuckled.

“Sleep well, boss?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Adaar grunted.

Bull moved to his other leg. Adaar flexed his wrists, listened to the ambient clink of the metal buckles against the bedpost and wondered why he liked that sound so much. It sent a chill down his spine, made him tingle in the best ways.

When he could no longer use his legs, Bull moved up to his wrists. He untied them from from the bed frame, and instead used one belt to tie them to each other. Then he rolled Adaar over, onto his back, and they were face-to-face again.

“How’s that feel?” Bull asked. “Still got circulation?”

Adaar wriggled around, felt out the new bindings. He’d been robbed of his defenses for the most part, and he was already hard for it. He brought his hands down and rested them on his chest. He flexed his extremities experimentally.

“This is good,” he murmured. His voice had gone bedroom husky. “I like this.”

“Good. Now, this.” Bull lifted the metal bit and grinned.

Adaar was pretty sure Bull had taken that thing right off a horse’s harness-- same shape, just about the same size, minus all the excess leather--and he wrinkled his nose at it. “Was that in a horse’s mouth?” he asked.

That startled Bull into a laugh. “What if is was? Would you say it?” he asked.

Adaar knew he was referring to their watchword. He debated on it, weighing his sense of hygiene against the absolute thrill of putting his life and his well-being in Iron Bull’s hands. “I trust you,” Adaar said, finally.

“Good. Then open up.”

Bull threaded the leather through one loop on the metal bit, set the bit between Adaar’s teeth, and ran the leather behind his head. He tied it tight enough to keep it from moving, but loose enough so Adaar could move his tongue around it. He could still say _katoh_ , if he needed to. It would be garbled, but he could be heard.

Then Bull stood, left him there in the middle of the bed. Immobile, with cold steel pressing down on his tongue. Adaar writhed around experimentally. Everything held--he was comfortably uncomfortable.

“Didn’t actually plan on using this today,” Bull said as he crossed the room with the coil of rope. He hung the coil on the back of the desk chair. “I thought having some rope around might come in handy.”

Adaar moaned something that might’ve been an actual attempt at communication. He didn’t really know, himself. He thought that rope was most definitely a thing to have around, and he also thought that being exposed like this was getting a little cold. The damn tower rooms were never without a draft. The cold air brushed over his bare skin, left gooseflesh in its wake.

Bull made that chest-deep rumble of approval that reminded Adaar of a big cat. “Oooh, that’s hot. Keep that up.”

He didn’t know if Bull meant the moaning or the squirming. The squirming was mostly unintentional. He realized he was arching his back and spreading his knees wider, but that was one of the only ways he could adjust himself and he wanted to see what Bull was doing on the other side of the room. The moaning, though--he hadn’t even realized he was making noise at all, until Bull made that rope comment. It was just so hard to keep _quiet_ with a gag in his mouth.

He liked it when Bull called him hot. No one had ever said it like Bull, with those undertones of heat and power and this edge of unrestrained desire. Bull sounded like a wave about to crash, a roll of thunder breaking. And all of that intent was focused solely on Adaar. That was the most exciting thing about being tied up, for him--he was there because Bull _wanted_ him, and wanted to dominate him.

It took some rolling around, but Adaar managed to get up on his knees. He sat on his legs, trying very hard not to feel like he’d moved just to sit pretty for Bull, and that he really just wanted to prove to himself that he could work with his legs and wrists bound. He convinced himself that was his reasoning, then immediately had to deny the soft fluttering in his gut when he realized Bull was watching him like a hawk.

Bull approached the bed, slowed as he neared the edge of the mattress. He took Adaar by the chin and tilted his head to the right with an air of smugness about him. Adaar’s neck was hyperextended, exposed, and Bull descended on the tender skin just below his jaw. It started as a kiss, gentle lips-on-skin that made Adaar shiver, and ended in a bite that had him yelping. It would leave a nasty bruise by the end of the day--that much he was certain of.

“Looks like you want something, boss,” Bull said. His voice had dropped to that delicious baritone, his lips were right up against Adaar’s ear and if he did nothing but hear Bull talk to him like that for the rest of his life, he would’ve been a happy Vashoth.

He couldn’t say that, of course. But it was in his voice when he moaned. Then Bull took him by the cock and teased him into a full, needy erection. He couldn’t do anything about it--when he tried to use his bound hands, Bull hooked two fingers of his free hand beneath the belt and pulled Adaar’s wrists over his head. He kept them there with his unforgiving strength while he did a little exploring, nice and easy, slow and savoring. Fingers on his thighs, sliding beneath him while he knelt on his bound legs.

He hissed quietly when Bull pushed a fingertip inside him, uncomfortable and horny and impatient. Last night had been rough and recent enough to leave Adaar loose, he didn’t need the preparation. It was only when Bull started finger-fucking him that he realized Bull wasn’t looking to loosen him up. He was just toying with him.

Suddenly it was very, very hard to keep quiet.

Bull let him nuzzle, Bull was the strong hand holding him still and close and bound. Bull was the pivot, the central axis of Adaar’s universe in that heated moment. There was nothing beyond the bed and the pleasure between his legs.

Adaar moaned something that might’ve been a, “ _fuck me_.” But he was garbled, gagged, and all he knew was that the sound of his desperation lit some fire in the Bull’s eyes. He surrendered himself over to what Bull wanted to do to him, and that urged Bull on harder.

They fell back on the mattress, Adaar on his back and Bull above him. The fingers were still inside him, Bull worked him into a rock-hard erection, to the point that his own head was kissing his naval and he was wordlessly _begging_ for something larger in his ass.

And then--finally--Bull let his wrists go and went to his own belt. He loosened it in two smooth motions, ones Adaar felt on an intimate level, between his legs against his thighs where he could do nothing about it. He felt Bull’s cock without seeing it, just this hot heavy thing that slid up against his own. He moaned, egging him on.

A driving warmth, a desperate need. Bull plunged into him, a thick head and a girth that filled him close to bursting. A familiar feeling, the rush of deep need that sat in his cock as his bobbed against his stomach. The full frontal force of Bull’s thrusts immediately began shaking the bed as he moved inside him. The ferocity of the fuck, the deliberate power in each movement ran Adaar ragged, closer to climax but closer to thinking it was _too much_. But no, he wanted it. He wanted this. He wanted it to ache, he wanted it to leave him weak and sore for days.

And Bull gave him exactly what he wanted.

Once Bull was inside him, the edges of the real world blurred together into one raw experience, he was _ruled_ by the beast on top of him, claimed, submissive. The individual sensations, the give and take as Bull stuffed his cock into him, the sweet relief as he pulled out, blurred together. Adaar screamed his way into a miserable, intense orgasm.

Bull came after, some blinded, bliss-sweet moment later as Adaar numbly enjoyed the base warmth of feeling owned. He still couldn’t move his legs, and that was nice. He liked it. He liked it a lot. And he liked cumming so hard that he felt like he was floating. He could’ve stayed wrapped up in that mental place forever.

Distantly, disconnected, Adaar felt Bull slide out of him. His weight on the mattress shifted, hands took one bound leg and began loosening the ties. Muscles clenched and stiffly relaxed as he extended his freed leg. He groaned into it, surprised at how sore he’d gotten so quickly. They hadn’t even been having sex that long.

Bull moved quickly, from his other leg to his wrists and finally to the gag. Adaar wiped at the accumulation of drool the gag had left, grinned blearily up at Bull and tugged his horns down. They met in a sloppy kiss made of soft afterthoughts and raw emotion.

“I’ll assume that means you enjoyed it,” Bull commented afterward. He ran his fingers up and down the muscles of Adaar’s legs, massaging out the cramps that came with being bound.

“That would be a very sound assumption,” Adaar slurred.

Aftercare was not something Adaar was used to, nor was it something he’d expected when he got wrapped up in this messy, inexplicable thing with Bull. It was a good thing Bull knew what he was doing. Adaar had never been regularly bound and fucked, he’d been floored the first time Bull had released him then started fussing over him. It seemed so...at odds with what they did. The commands Bull gave him in the game were not there after the fact. This was all touch, tender conversation and Adaar feeling like a complete, happy mess.

When Bull finally decided Adaar was fussed over enough, he stretched out beside him. Adaar immediately took advantage of the new proximity and cuddled up to him. He was sleepy, curious, and still tingling from Bull’s attentions. Bull didn’t push him away or move to get up, which was an invitation in Adaar’s mind. He began exploring.

Adaar’s fingertip traced the twisted knot of scar tissue on Bull’s stomach, just left of his naval. “Is this from Seheron?” he asked. “That time you told Varric about…”

Bull grunted. “When I sawed through the guy’s armor? Yeah. I got one on the back to match it.”

“You’re lucky to have survived that,” Adaar murmured. He was more interested in chasing the scars across Bull’s chest than the words coming out of his own mouth.

“Oh, it’s more than luck. I’m too stubborn to die. Not by Tal-Vashoth hands, anyway,” Bull said. There was some amount of pride in that, for him. It was in his voice, in the quiet way he chuckled beneath his breath. “Demons, maybe. Or a _dragon_. Now that would be a worthy death.”

Adaar folded his arms over Bull’s ribs and perched his chin on his wrists. His eyes were lidded, content, and his smirk was a wry one. He was too content to be self-conscious, to be aware of himself at all. Bull had run him ragged and now he felt clean, open. It was a beautiful feeling.

“You’ll be surviving all the dragons _this_ Inquisition takes down, if I have any say,” Adaar said. As ‘honorable’ as dying by dragon was for a Qunari, he wasn’t willing to acknowledge that Bull actually _could_ die. He was a Reaver, an immortal beast on the battlefield. What could take down a force of nature?

“Yeah?” Bull’s expression softened. “Well. I suppose there’s always after.”

Adaar snaked one hand up Bull’s chest and flicked him on the nose. “No dying by dragons.”

Bull laughed. “Whatever you say, boss.”


	3. Part 2: Behind the Rift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just a quick note-- ch 1 & 2 I consider "part 1." Ch 3 is the start of "part 2." Just so no one gets caught off guard--there is a time skip of several weeks between parts 1 and 2.

 

 

Closing rifts felt a little bit like pouring himself through the ragged green mark of the fade on his hand. He didn’t know where it went, but he felt just a little... _less_ with every rift he closed. He knew it wasn’t natural, and it also hadn’t always been like this. Those first few rifts were easy. But ever since Corypheus took down Haven, things hadn’t been the same.

Something was wrong with the mark. He just didn’t know who to tell, who he could trust with that. The Inquisition grew every day and believed he was the savior that would slay the breach in the sky and the demon lord advancing across the plains. He couldn’t just turn around and unload on his followers. They needed him to be a beacon of strength.

The inner circle knew him as a man, as well as an Inquisitor. But even then--Vivienne was here because of his strength, so was Sera, Blackwall, and Cassandra. What would they do if they knew he was becoming weaker? How did he stop it?

So he’d left to figure it out. That’s what he told himself, anyway. He had Varric, Solas, and the Iron Bull with him and they were doing some basic recon in the Hinterlands that should’ve been a scout’s job. Adaar was actually searching for rifts, but his companions didn’t know that was the _purpose_ of coming out here.

He didn’t trust anyone else with him. He was going to try and close a rift today, and he was going to figure out where his bits and pieces were going. He had to fix the mark.

 

\--

The demons were tough, and there were a lot of them. The fight was long, tiring. Adaar found himself stressed by this rift, its incessant muttering at the back of his head while he tried to cast at the demons. The battle passed in a messy tangle of faltering concentration and narrowly dodged attacks.

Toward the end of the fight, as wave after wave of demon passed, Armogan could sense it getting weaker. He carefully pulled out of the fight and sought a better position. He was going to attack the rift itself.

He found a rough path up the rocky outcropping that flanked the battlefield, and dashed up it before any of the demons noticed him. From the vantage of the jagged boulders, Adaar could get a clean shot at the raw light of the rift. It pulled at him, waxed through his vision and pulled him toward it. He raised his marked hand and concentrated on that falling sensation. If he closed his eyes, he felt like he was plummeting straight into that eerie green glow.

A crackle of static wormed down his arm and into his chest. The rift fought him, but he was so much more than a thought of the fade. It began closing, pressed beneath his will and his presence. This was all how it was supposed to feel, this felt right and healthy and _correct_.

Then--as it had been recently--he felt his edges grow hazy. Like he’d delved too deep into the fade, or used too much magic in a single spell. There was a sense that he was a drop in a huge, dark ocean, and that drop was growing smaller.

Adaar grunted, his knees buckled under the mental pressure. He kept going, his hand was still raised.

What he could feel outside himself terrified him. He close his eyes and followed his magic through the mark and stared at the eye of the rift, this conscious _thing_ where the rift emerged on the other side of the fade. It saw him, just as he saw it. The world felt like it was breaking at the seams around him, ripped open and pulled out of his grasp.

The thing behind the rift screamed.

He screamed back at it.

Then he was staring at the serene, blue sky of 2pm in the Hinterlands. He was laying on some nice, cool grass in the shade of an old oak tree. Solas was frowning down at him.

“Did I...black out?” Adaar asked, muddled and confused.

“You did.” Solas pulled Adaar’s eyelids open, peered into either eye speculatively. He picked the Inquisitor’s hand up and felt his pulse. “How are you feeling? How is the mark?”

“Ugh.” Adaar sighed and clenched his marked hand. “Something’s wrong. I felt like I could see _through_ the rift that time. Did it close?”

Solas took his marked hand and examined it closely. “It did. There’s something different about this area now, though. The close wasn’t clean. That’s the best way I can describe it.” Solas turned and pointed down the slope behind him.

It looked like they’d dragged Adaar away from the location. He realized that as he sat up and got a good look around him. The stream where the rift had opened was several hundred yards away, sitting pretty and vivid in the sunlight. The Iron Bull was standing between Adaar’s spot and where the rift was, his back on the group to guard against some enemy he couldn’t see. Varric was standing behind Solas, watching the conversation attentively.

Adaar focused on how the road before him _felt_ , the way he could feel rifts from a distance like itches on the inside of his skull. Solas was right, there was still something weird about the area. Some extra layer of _stuff_ , like the fade was closer here.

“Strange,” he muttered.

“I suspect you’ve changed this area irrevocably. Tell me--what did you see on the other side of the rift?” Solas asked.

“...I don’t know what to call it. A demon, I suppose,” Adaar said. “Not really, though. Something more. I felt like it was the rift, but it could see me. So it was more than just a hole in the veil.”

“So it noticed you. Did you see anything else?” Solas asked.

Adaar shook his head. “I woke up.”

Solas sat back on his heels and concentrated. Varric stirred, cleared his throat and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Hate to break up the scholar study but--should we get movin’? If we stay here any longer, Tiny looks like he’s going to flip on the squirrels.”

They agreed. Solas began packing up his medical supplies and Varric gathered the water skins. Adaar used the nearby tree trunk as a support as he got to his feet, then as his sole source of balance while the world shifted sickeningly around him. Whatever the mark had done to him, it wasn’t over.

“Bull!” Adaar shouted. “Come help me.”

Adaar didn’t see the Bull move. He knew the Bull was standing guard one moment, and at his side the next, and he _forgot_ how fucking fast the Bull could be. Maybe it was because he was only used to that speed during battles, not when he just asked his bodyguard to come over and give him an arm to hang on to.

He got one good look at the expression on the Bull’s face and he knew this rift business was getting to him. The Bull was pale, the lines on his face were deep and he was frowning. Really frowning.

“Are you alright?” he asked Adaar.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. He grinned sheepishly. “Just a little woozy. Can you give me a hand?”

The Bull’s arm contained enough brute force to kill a man. He’d seen the Bull rip soldiers in half, taken with the blood lust of the reaver. That same power kept him upright as they navigated away from the tree, onto the road, and toward camp. The Bull kept pace with him, endlessly patient, steadied him when he felt weak-kneed and clumsy. The grogginess wore off eventually, but Adaar was hard pressed to let go of the Bull’s hand.

He thought it felt right.

\--

The Inquisitor’s party returned to Skyhold three hours after dark, sullen with little fanfare. Something was wrong, the soldiers whispered of it already. One of the requisition scouts had returned ahead of them, it seemed. Rumors spread like wildfire as the Inquisitor, Solas, Dorian and the rest of the mages walled themselves up in the library to puzzle out a riddle that no one had ever faced before.

There was something wrong with the mark. The rumors could not leave Skyhold, the servants that knew were rounded up and kept on a tight leash. The mages would figure it out. Solas would figure it out. Adaar would figure it out. It didn’t matter, just that it got done.

Thankfully no one had yet to connect the dots. He was sure they would start soon, but no one had started talking about how the Inquisitor must be weaker, now. It was only a matter of time.

Three days after their return, Adaar was staring red-eyed and exhausted at his desk. He had every scrap of information they’d found thus far spread out in some form or another in front of him, and he still felt no closer to knowing what had changed about the mark. Somehow this seemed like a bigger issue now that the others knew about it, though. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

And then...there was the Bull.

He’d been avoiding Bull. Adaar knew it, but it seemed like the lesser issue right now and he didn’t have strength to stress over the mark and why the Bull was being moody. Finally, after a lot of dodges and early nights and avoiding the tavern, the Bull had just barged his way into Adaar’s tower. Now they were face-to-face, and Adaar had no idea what to tell him.

“You haven’t stopped working on this, Kadan,” the Bull said. Again, as if that would change his mind. “You need a break.”

Honestly, he’d thought the Bull would be angry with him. But the Bull just sounded...sad. Quiet, exhausted like he was the one working day and night, not the other way around.

Adaar shook his head. “I need you to sleep with the Chargers tonight. I don’t have time for breaks,” he said.

The Bull did not move. He did not look happy, and he looked ready to defend his position. Adaar geared up for a debate about this.

“You are fighting a battle and I can’t be at your side for it,” the Bull said. Adaar had never heard him sound so defeated. He walked around the desk and approached Adaar, his fingers on Adaar’s elbow. Guiding, strong, warm, his touch was the worst part about missing him these past few days. “I am useless to you out there. Let me be here for you, at least.”

Adaar shrugged away from the Bull’s advance, curled his arms around himself and glared at the desk as if it owed him a personal apology. This wasn’t easy--he was resisting what he wanted, too. He wanted to belong to the Bull for the night. He didn’t want to say no.

“I have to figure this out, first. I can’t do...I can’t rest until I know this is solved,” Adaar said. “It’s a matter of our safety. All of Skyhold’s. The mages are working ‘round the clock on this, and I have to do just as much.” Adaar’s glare softened, and he stole a glance at the Bull. “Know that I want to.”

The Bull sighed, but he relented. He backed off and gave Adaar his personal space. “It’s like you’re punishing yourself,” the Bull muttered. “You didn’t break the mark, Kadan. You don’t have to spill blood for it. You’ve already given too much.”

His protective streak was showing. Adaar smiled at the Bull, kissed him lightly, and nudged him toward the door. “I will do whatever is needed. I’ll see you in the morning, Bull.”

 


End file.
